GBKA  Registered Charity Number : 1014600

  Are You Doing This?

If your bees can get at any heather then watch the supers, the bees may need extra room.

When you have taken off the honey treat for varroa. Make sure you have enough of your chosen treatment for all your hives.

The wasp season is with us. If you see any evidence of them close your entrances and make sure all your equipment is wasp tight to prevent robbing.

We suggest that you do not sell your honey for less than £4.00lb. That is what it is fetching at the shows.

Thanks and Farewell

Mike Foster, who is a life member of this association and has been our auditor for many years, has recently moved back to his roots in Bristol . We owe him many thanks not only for auditing the books for so long but also for the very active part he has played in the association over the years, organising many things including the MSWCC on several occasions. He was involved with setting up the first association apiary at Usk College in the 70’s where he was running the horticulture department and it flourished there for many years until Usk College changed and vandals became a problem. The association used to have two divisions, Newport and Abergavenny and Mike was always the co-ordinator.

Mike will be at Usk Show, judging the Trade stands, so we have not lost touch altogether.

We wish him well in his new life in Bristol .

Looking after your bees

      *    At the apiary meeting on 2nd September John Holden will be dispensing oxalic acid in a ready to use form for people who have only a few hives and for whom it is not worth buying a whole bottle. You  need about 50ml per hive so if you would like some please bring a suitably sized container with a good lid.

He will also have some Apiguard which comes in packs of 10 sufficient for 5 colonies which he will split for people who only have 1 to 3 colonies.

      **  At the Goytre meeting on 13th September John will be organising a microscopy session for inspecting bees for nosema and tracheal mites. If you would like to test your bees you must bring a sample of about 30 freshly killed bees. (The easiest way to do this is to put them in a cardboard box in the freezer for 24 hours—or for 2-3 days— and take them out when you come to the meeting.)

Apiary Meeting 12th August

This was a very well attended meeting and John performed varroa pyrethroid resistance tests on 4 colonies. The total number of mites in each colony was not large so the results are probably statistical nonsense, but for the record they showed about 25% resistance. On the strength of this and the fact that 25% can quickly build up to a debilitating amount we are going to be treating them with Apiguard, now, followed by Oxalic acid in late December/early January (when there should be no brood).

Comment

If you would like details of any of the events coming up do ask me for them, it sometimes doesn’t seem worth printing all the details in the newsletter if no-one is going to do anything about it but it is right that you should be aware that these things are going on. Jill says that the CABK meetings are really worth going to if you have the time, especially the weekend. We will be at the MSWCC next weekend but are going to miss Apimondia, it is such a long way to go!!! I hope as many of you as possible will be able to come to the dinner. It is good to see some non beekeeping faces at our social occasions.

Bridget

Queen Rearing

Beekeeping Season 2007 arrived – I had a few more colonies than I needed so time to try a few things I have not dabbled in before.

Grafting – Willie kindly allowed me to take a few larvae from his best hive – a descendant of Norman Fisher’s best hive.  With a copy of Vince Cook’s book in one hand, and Mike Pett humping the boxes, a double brood with a lot of queenless nurse bees upstairs was created.  A rigid timetable of actions has to be adhered to so my new Chinese grafting tool was put to use on a rainy day – transferring 24 larvae into wax cups sitting in the front of the car.  The nurse bees accepted just 2 and drew them into queen cells – the rest into brace comb. The sealed queen cells were transferred into 5 frame nucs. Goodness knows where I would have put them if they had accepted all 24!  I left the nucs in the apiary.  They hatched, got mated and are laying well.  I was amazed.

The lady who sells Apideas at Stoneleigh started me thinking about using them for swarm queen cells.  Later in the season into an Apidea went such a cell from a good colony plus half a yogurt carton of nurse bees.  They spent a week roaring away in the spare bedroom.  Then they returned to the apiary to a position under a bush and the door was opened. Two weeks later – a big fat queen.  I was delighted.  She has been united over newspaper with a queenless colony.  Another Apidea is currently home to a good spare  queen removed from her colony in a swarming situation.

So if you have not tried these things yourselves – it is really worth giving them a go.  It was great fun and you too can become a queen bee midwife.                                                                                Janet

My first swarm

Tuesday, 2pm, 3^rd July 2007, it’s raining and thunder is rumbling in the distance. I arrive for a meeting at Bettws Newydd people are running for cover, women are screaming, the sky is getting a little darker. Oh My God!! It’s a swarm.

Now I have done the beekeeping course, read the books, I even have a few colonies of bees of my own, (well since last July) but this is the first swarm I have encountered.

Being an old boy scout I decided a few months ago to be prepared for such an event and to put a swarm kit together. I bought a spare pair of bee gloves and a hat and veil put them in a strong cardboard box along with an old quilt cover and a pair of secateurs. I put the box in the boot of my car never really expecting to ever use it. But here I am; I have the knowledge, I have the gear, but do I have the courage to save these poor fragile non beekeepers from a lifetime of nightmares?

The swarm has now landed outside the main entrance balling on three of four foxgloves. I could say and do nothing act like the others here and hide away inside away from this horror that has come down from the sky until they decide to move away themselves. But if I was to do this how could I ever call myself a beekeeper?

Too late! Even as I am doubting my ability to do the task I am opening the boot of my car. My god I’m really going to do this! Gloves, hat and veil donned I walk towards the swarm carrying the cardboard box. I can hear gasps of astonishment in the distance; I look around and can see faces pressed up against the windows looking at me. Here I go!

The weight of the bees has bent the foxgloves over onto the floor. I placed the opened quilt on to the ground and put the box on top. With the secateurs I gently snip the bottom of the foxglove and pick it up in two hands, the bees are just hanging there a ball about the size of a large orange. They are so quiet, hardly any flying bees now. I place them in the box and move on to the next one confidence building all the time. Finally after only a few minutes (which at the time seamed ages) they are all in the box except for a few hundred lying on the floor which I attempt to scoop up with my hands and add to the box.

I close the box pull the quilt cover up around it and tie a knot in it to secure the bees inside. While carrying them to the car cheers suddenly bring me out of a trance like state. It was my audience clapping and cheering, made me feel like I had just saved the world. I put the swarm securely in the boot of my car, took off my gear, grabbed my briefcase and walked into the meeting shoulders back and head high. I had done it! My first swarm.

My meeting lasted about an hour but I can’t really remember much about it, all I could think about was re-hiving my new colony. I got in the car to drive home with my bounty and suddenly thought have I made their temporary home in my boot bee proof? Are they going to escape into the car whilst I am driving? I drove the ten or so miles home with one eye on the road and the other on the rear view mirror looking for the slightest movement behind me.

By the time I got home it was about 4.30 pm. The weather had turned much worse raining heavily and the thunder was now overhead.

Now! All I had been taught on the bee course, heard from experienced beekeepers and read in books told me that bees and thunderstorms don’t mix and here I was, late in the day, trying to re-hive my new colony in a thunderstorm! Daft or what? Luckily I had a nuc box with undrawn frames ready to use. I got together everything I thought I would need donned a full bee suit (just in case) and waited for the rain to stop. 20 minutes passed no sign of it stopping 30 minutes a loud clap of thunder right over head the light in my bee shed flickered. Finally at 5.40pm the rain eased up and stopped but the sky was black and I knew I would not have long. I took the roof off the nuc and removed two frames, then gingerly opened the quilt cover and cardboard box. I was surprised at how quiet and calm the bees were. Most of them were still balled on one of the foxgloves but there were a lot clinging to the sides of the box and inside the quilt cover. I didn’t know where the queen was but guessed that she would probably be with in the main ball so I gently shook the bees off the foxglove into the top of the nuc box put the cover board on with a feeder containing some sugar syrup and put the lid on. I placed a board against the nuc entrance and placed the cardboard box and the quilt on the floor at the base of the board. Within a couple of minutes they started crawling up the board and entered the nuc.

That was last week and I am now happy to report that they are still there and taking in pollen.

Well that’s my story. I hope it gives some hope and encouragement to the new members and the knowledge that if I can do it then so can they. And maybe bring back some memories to you older (I mean more experienced beekeepers) of when you collected your first swarms.

Ron James.       

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